Parallels Desktop and the /usr/local/lib dependency

UPDATE 2010-06-30: I added a missing backslash (\) to
escape a space in the pathname given in the ln -s
invocation at the end of the article.

If you use Parallels Desktop on a Mac, be
aware that it may install dependencies in /usr/local/lib.

After a couple months of not needing access to any virtual machines, I
recently tried to fire up Parallels on my Mac only to find that it would
crash immediately. I checked Console.app for possible error messages and
discovered the following single message:

It was repeated every time I tried to launch Parallels. I started
searching the mighty intertubes for a clue, and ran across a lengthy
thread on the
Parallels Forum about the same problem with Parallels 3.0 (I’m using
4.0). Down towards the bottom of the first page user “wa6vvv” mentions
that Parallels may create a symlink for libprl_sdk.dylib
in /usr/local/lib. I spun up a backup and sure enough
libprl_sdk.dylib was a symlink to a file buried deep under
/Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app.

If you don’t have backups (but you really, really should) the symlink
is still easy enough to restore via the command line: